The great and the good will be stepping onto the red carpet on Sunday for the Bafta Cymru awards.

The great and the good will be stepping onto the red carpet on Sunday for the Bafta Cymru awards. Actress Mali Harries and her actor husband Matthew Gravelle have both been shortlisted in major categories. Karen Price finds out what it means to them

Mali Harries

YOU could forgive Mali Harries for feeling a bit like Cinderella. The 33-year-old actress and her husband Matthew Gravelle may both be shortlisted for major Bafta Cymru awards – for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively – but they won’t be pulling on their gladrags for this Sunday’s ceremony as they have a prior family engagement.

And it’s not the first time that Mali’s missed a major red-carpet event.

“I was in a film called Sixty Six and we were watching the news one night when they showed a clip of the premiere in London,” says Mali. “I wondered why we hadn’t got an invite and later discovered they had sent it to our old address in Caerphilly.

“I also did a tiny scene in a film with Amy Adams called Leap Year, so Math and I went to watch it in the cinema. Half way through, the projector broke down so we didn’t get to see my name in the credits!

“So I was really gutted when I discovered we couldn’t make it to the Baftas this year either.”

Mali is nominated for her role as Kate in the S4C drama Caerdydd. “I don’t like watching myself on screen at all,” admits the mother-of-two. “She (Kate) was interesting to play because she changed quite a lot over five series. She was quite mousy to start with but she’d come full circle by the end.”

Mali discovered she had been nominated for a Bafta Cymru award after a phone call from her mum.

“It was very funny. My mum’s quite a character and she said, ‘I’ve had seven phone calls – you are both up for a Bafta and it’s in the paper.’

“I was then going on a radio programme so thought I’d better check it out in case they asked me about it.

“It was a shock really. Acting’s just what we do – plumbers don’t get an award for putting a good radiator on the wall do they?

“It’s lovely to be acknowledged but Math and I are both quite shy people really. In the past I think I’ve won three glasses in the school bingo and about a tenner on the Lottery. Math has been nominated before though. In fact, that was my only outing to the Baftas.”

Meanwhile, her husband, who has been shortlisted for his role in S4C’s Y Pris, will go head to head with Aled Pugh for Ryan a Ronnie and Mali’s Caerdydd co-star Ryland Teifi.

But she says there’s absolutely no rivalry at all.

“It’s lovely because we’re all friends,” she says. “It’s a pleasure to be in the same groups as them – we are as proud of their talents and it doesn’t feel like a competition. It will be a pleasure whoever wins.”

Mali, who is from Cardiff where she now lives with Matthew and their children – five-year-old Ela and two-year-old Tomi – became interested in acting at a young age – her stepfather, Phylip, is an actor and her mother, Mags, is a harpist.

It was while she was on a course with the National Youth Theatre of Wales that she met Amy Gravelle. Amy later introduced Mali to her brother Matthew and the two became friends before eventually becoming an item.

After graduating from Bristol Old Vic, Mali concentrated on theatre work for many years and enjoyed a successful season with the Royal Shakespeare Company alongside former Doctor Who David Tennant.

“David is the most hard-working and most positive all round beautiful person,” she says.

“I have a picture of him somewhere curled up in a hammock in our back yard in London.”

Among Mali’s TV credits are Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders and The Bill.

Mali recently filmed a new Welsh language drama series Pentalar, which will be screened on S4C this autumn.

“I play a character called Siân and I age from 22 to 62 which was interesting. She is timid to start with and then becomes a member of the Assembly and a voice of Welsh politics.”

So with just days to go until the Bafta Cymru ceremony, is there any tension in the Harries/Gravelle household.

“Of course not,” says Mali, who enjoys spending time at their allotment when she’s not working. “My money’s on Math to be honest and if he wins I would be marvellously proud.”

Matthew Gravelle

THEY may be husband and wife in real life but Matthew Gravelle and Mali Harries almost lost the chance to play partners on BBC medical drama Holby City – because they weren’t convincing as a couple.

“They wanted us both but the producers didn’t think we looked like a couple,” laughs 34-year-old Matthew.

“The director knew us though and told them we actually were a couple.”

They have also both appeared in a number of Welsh language TV dramas, including Caerdydd and Pentalar but they didn’t share any scenes.

“It was weird working together,” says Matthew of their time in Holby City.

“You see this person whom you share every aspect of your life with pretending to be someone else while you’re pretending to be someone else.”

Now, of course, they have both been shortlisted for a Bafta Cymru award.

Matthew, originally from Porthcawl, is nominated for Best Actor for playing Lyn in S4C’s Y Pris.

“He runs a garage as a front for a drugs business,” says Matthew. “I really enjoyed playing him as he was morally dubious.”

He was also in the running for the same award two years ago but he was beaten by Rhodri Evan.

“It was fine. I was really relieved that I didn’t have to go up and make a speech,” he says. “I hadn’t been on stage for ages so the idea of going up there and saying something vaguely witty absolutely filled me with terror.”

He says that he would choose his wife over him to win this year.

“If we had been going to the ceremony then she could have gone on stage to speak instead of me,” he laughs.

While Mali spent much of her early career in theatre, Matthew has focused more on TV and film.

He recently shot Patagonia, the new feature from director Marc Evans.

Matthew plays a photographer called Rhys who visits the Welsh colony along with his girlfriend, played by Nia Roberts, to document the chapels.

“He wants to take his girlfriend with him as he thinks it’s going to be romantic but he is immersed in work and she gets rather bored so she develops a relationship with a guide, played by Matthew Rhys.”

They spent a month filming in Patagonia.

“It was an amazing place. The biggest thing for me was that after arriving in Buenos Aires and feeling completely adrift because I don’t speak any Spanish, I finally got to Patagonia where I was greeted by people speaking in Welsh.

“It was massively comforting to be able to communicate using your own language while so far away from home.”

He admits it was difficult being away from his family for so long.

“I’d only ever spent 10 days away before that,” he says.

Matthew – whose first job was starring alongside his old schoolfriend Rob Wilfort on the BBC Wales sketch show Teach Yourself To Be Welsh – has now joined the cast of S4C’s Teulu, where he plays surfer Huw.

He says that despite both working irregular hours as actors, he and Mali have so far managed to juggle their careers with childcare.

“We take work as it comes as you have to – we then panic,” he laughs. “But, touch wood, it usually works out that one of us is around. I don’t think our kids have been massively affected.”

The Bafta Cymru Awards will be presented at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on Sunday at 6pm. For tickets, call 029 2063 6464

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